Welcome to the ISCB Community News Blog

This blog collects news, announcements or other information which could be of interest to our ISCB members. We are a group ISCB members who volunteer to populate this blog on a regular basis. In case you want to become an "ISCB-News Reporter" yourself, let us know: contact ISCBDon't repost copyrighted content! The guidelines are:- Include a link to the source page- Include a short summary about the article. You can quote up to ONE paragraph from the original story, but not more- Don't repost an entire articles originating from another source- Never post content without attribution — always include the sourceTo post a news, please use this form.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Federal agencies will be issuing new and modifying existing data access policies over the next few years; an overview of these changes was presented on recent Board and Science Policy Committee conference calls. At the request of the FASEB Board, we have developed a survey to gather the many different perspectives of FASEB societies on data maintenance and sharing. This will enable us to promptly and thoughtfully respond to agency actions. Please complete the 15 minute survey linked to below by November 24th.

Background information: The 2013 Office of Science and Technology memorandum on public access to research results requires federal agencies to create and expand requirements for sharing digital data produced as part of federally funded research. At a minimum, agencies will require that a data management plan (DMP) be included in all research grant applications. Additional information about the memorandum and select agency plans can be found in the attached document.

Survey results will be compiled by FASEB staff and presented to the FASEB Data Science and Informatics Subcommittee. They will inform FASEB comments on issued or proposed agency policies and may also be used for the development of a broad position statement.

If you have any questions or comments about the survey, please contact Bethany Drehman at bdrehman@faseb.org.

Monday, October 19, 2015

The new Common Fund Program Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans has two overarching goals: 1) to assemble a comprehensive map of the molecular changes that occur in response to physical activity and 2) to develop a user-friendly database that any researcher can access to develop hypotheses regarding the mechanisms whereby physical activity improves or preserves health.

The program will be funded via a series of cooperative agreements as a consortium. The NIH is now inviting applications for the following components.

Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Bioinformatics Center (U24) (RFA-RM-15-012) A Bioinformatics Center to develop a multidimensional data resource that is capable of receiving the range of datasets from the Chemical Analysis Sites and distributing them to the broad scientific community in formats that investigators can use to develop and test hypotheses about the mechanisms by which physical activity improves health.

For more information, please see the funding opportunity announcements in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. NIH also will be hosting a webinar to answer questions from prospective applicants on October 22, 2015, beginning at 2 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time. For additional information, please visit http://commonfund.nih.gov/MolecularTransducers.

The NIH Common Fund supports goal-driven, research networks in which investigators generate data, solve technological problems, and/or otherwise pilot resources and tools that will be stimulatory to the broader research community. Common Fund programs are designed to achieve their goals within a maximum of 10 years. More information about the programs currently supported by the Common Fund can be found at www.commonfund.nih.gov.